Wednesday, 8 February 2012

Social media tools have opened up a door to the public; allowing people to become amateur authors, editors and publishers.In today’s society it has come down to the click of a few buttons and you have a blank template to update the world on news and information.Some may think that this is a great opportunity, allowing every day citizens to have a “voice”.There just seems to be an issue with this new ability and it comes down to the quality of information.Every person has their own view on things, and when we, as readers, are getting updated on news we like to hear an unbiased opinion.It takes a professional to present information in a pleasing way to readers, which is why we have professional authors, editors and so forth.The quality of information is diminished when we rely on amateurs to deliver the information.A perfect example of information quality deteriorating is Wikipedia. This site is known to provide the public with information; it is very commonly known and used by people every day.Wikipedia allows people to upload material to their site, this material is monitored but because it is a SEMI-open forum it is not a reliable source.

Social media plays a big part in how people interact and share information and news.A couple examples are Facebook and Twitter.A high majority of the world’s population has an account with these two social media tools and these tools main roles are to update people on news and information.I can say from personal experience that having the ability to easily update over 300 people ideas, thoughts, experiences, knowledge, etc. it has its negative points. Some issues that happen are gossiping, misconstrued information, false facts, and looking like an idiot. All of these are problems that have arisen due to the quality of the news presented.There is a positive when it comes to using social media tools, and that is fast and effective ways to spread “the word” but we must keep in mind that if “the word” isn’t quality information, then it isn’t worth reading in the first place.